Hydrogen peroxide to treat velvet.

[Linilou]

My boyfriends tank has recently had an outbreak of velvet. we have been researching many diffrent things to help treat the fish and short of taking all the fish out and setting up another thank, Hydrogen peroxide seems to be the only other treatment(and fresh water dips).

 

From what Ive read, dipping the fish in a bath of 100ppm should kill or at least dislodge the parasite off of the fish, but when reintroduced back into the aquarium, the fish gets re infected.

 

My question is that how much would you need to dose into a tank to kill the parasite in the water?

 

Would this even make sense as a treatment, or would you need concentrations so high it wouldn't be reef safe anymore? I ve seen it talked about in articles as working, but they never give the concentration they used in the display...

[brandon429]

Thats totally uncharted territory here I have no idea how it will work against a bacterium or a fungal, how interesting it will be to see.

 

Just going off what you described, heavy UV sterilization would be my first measure on the main tank before treating the main tank with anything chemical. 2 to 3 weeks of heavy UV, a unit much oversized to the tank its on. Id quarantine treat the fish and only do light on the big tank, I hate systemics of anything where corals are found if it can be prevented.

 

for actual water borne treatments Id still go with the recommended 'cidal designed for that pathogen. Velvet alone isn't enough to pinpoint the infection, I remember reading a few infections that are velvety and not even the same genus upon visual inspection, but if you can be reasonably sure the metronidazole or ? treatment is the one for that ailment (google will show) Id go there. It seems with fish following known protocols is a safer bet than this experimental we've only tweaked algae with.

 

However if you want to document new ground/testing with peroxide for your fish Id gladly follow, ,keep those before during and after pics flowing

[seabass]

I really don't have enough expertise on the subject to say, but (a 3% solution of) H2O2 has been used at 1ml per 10 gallons of tank water to treat algae. While certain coral, fish, and inverts can be affected (some severly, as in the case of Xenia), it is generally reef safe in this concentration.

 

You might try a freshwater dip solution and then treat the display with an H2O2 solution. Otherwise, you might try moving the fish into a bucket with non-reef safe medicine for an hour or two a day (returning it to the display after each treatment).

 

Again, just throwing a few ideas around (that I'm not sure how safe or effective they would be).

[BLoCkCliMbeR]

Thats totally uncharted territory here I have no idea how it will work against a bacterium or a fungal, how interesting it will be to see.

fungus i predict will be mostly unaffected.

[Linilou]

Well the first fatality has occurred. The fish which introduced the velvet into the tank passed tonight on his way to the hydrogen bath.

It was a coral beauty angel, and when we got him out of the tank, he spined up in the net, by the time he got to the bath, he was allready dead. Maby the stress of being chased around the tank was to much for his weak body to handle. Heart breaking none the less since this whole problem is completely pointless now that hes dead. He really was beuatiful too. Bright orange and yellow and the most beuatiful deep indigo. :/

This is pretty much what he looked like when he died. http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/im...s/oodinium8.jpg

Just a coincidence that thats a CB angel in the pic.

Ill be posting up dates, the other fish in this tank are a cinnamon clown,fire fish and yellow watchman goby. So far the only other fish that seems to be showing symptoms is the clown, breathing heavy, swimming sporadically.

 

What I think were going to do is take the remaining fish out of the display, and give them hp dips, transfer them to a hospital tank and treat them with an undecided treatment. Every 7 days were going to do a hp dip to rid the fish of any velvet that had attached to them, In the display tank we are going to treat 20 ml hp around every day to make shure there is nothing left of the velvet when the fish are re introduced in 30 ish days.

 

Plans might change, but Ill keep you guys updated.

[Builder Anthony]

You can click on my tank at the bottom of my post anthonys 5 gallon.There you can see the coral deaths i had from doseing a reef tank with a ich remover.Around page three or four.Sorry i cant help other then that.With all the medicenes developed for people you think one of those researchers would develop something for fish.

[Linilou]

Yeah, we know not to dose the reef with any ich medicine, but ive successfully dosed 10ml of hp in my 7 gallon tank with no deaths of coral or fish, so I think 20ml in his 20g tank is fairly safe.

 

The delima is do we want to treat the tank with the fish in it or move them to a qt and treat with something more well known...

[Builder Anthony]

Its awalys easy to think up the right answer.Acting on it is however alot harder.I have a problem going on with my fish and sometimes im able to cacth them but i start to think other things when i have them in qt like are they getting stressed.One time i thought my fish was gona die in qt so i put it in the display so it would be happy in its last hours but it then recovered but i think qt is the best for them but it may not be if they are stressed.I dont know its such a pain with diseases its like you yourself get caught up in its web of terror.

 

At least you care though.

[Linilou]

Pretty much the dilema im having. We know that if we leave the fish in the display, theres no way were going to be able to catch all 3 fish every 3 days to hp dip them to break the life cycle of the velvet, but we also are worried about the stress of qt, and no one wants there beautiful fish to be sitting in a dark empty tank with some pvc pipes. Its just depressing to look at.

 

Its really all up to him what he does. We live in separate apartments and have separate tanks so what he ends up doing I cant really help with...But he does care for his fish and I know he would be heart broken if the clown passed away, hes has it from day one, some 2~ years ago.

[Linilou]

Did the first peroxide dip tonight, the clown fish. Had a hell of a time catching him and im worried the stress of chasing him around the tank is doing more harm than good.

 

Did a hp bath at the recommended dose of 50 ppm. ( 3.4 ml per 8.5 cups of water (about half a gallon)) and he seemed fine the whole time. Breathing heavily, due to the velvet im sure more than the hp.

 

Got him out of the bath after 30 minutes and he hid behind a rock, probably scared about out of his mind.

 

The main problem is the other two fish, both gobys are literally impossible to get out of the tank to dose. Neither are showing signs of ailment atm, but I know that means nothing.

 

Also dosing the tank with 20 ml of hp, 10 in the morning 10 at night, the tank is handling this well, so im going to raise it to 30ml tomorrow.

[fishrme]

i had used the hydrogen peroxide in my tank ..i use the food grade hydorgen peroxide it is a 35% ..but you have to dilute it down at a 16 parts rodi to 1part hydrogen peroxide which makes it slighly less than a 3% hydrogen peroxide ..i use this in myswimming pool instead of chlorine ...i can stress how awesome that is in a swimming pool ...but the food grade is in its purest form ...very clean with no additives ..i had put in in too strong in my biocube the first time i used it ...i had read about it but didnt re-read before i used it in my tank ...but the fish did not die from the consitrated dose that i used ...it slightly stressed some of the coral ...i have a zenia type stuff that didnt like it ..it killed it back but i think its going to come back ..and the coral banded shrimp didnt like that dose ..i havent seen him again ..but all my other emarald crabs and corals are doing fine ..they bounced back exceptionally well ..so in the proper strenght it should be awesome ..i am now using it in my 70 gallon tank in the proper ratio ...trying it on the corals and the fish ..i had a powder blue tang that got stressed and got ick or something on it ...i think it passed it to the other fish ...so im checking this out on the other fish and corals in this tank ..my zenia in this tank it looking very happy and alll the other corals too ..i think this is going to work on the fish too ..the green hair algae and the red slime in the biocube are totally gone ..so im loving that ...i took my water to be tested and it was perfect and i had no nitrates ...so that is awesome ...the lfs was impressed with the readings ..so i think im on to something ..i had done alot of research on the peroxide for my swimming pool ...it is very healthy for you ...you have to dilute the food grade ..the water when i backwash my pool is actually healthy for plants ..it oxygenates the soil and it is used by frmaers to kill fungus in the soil ...used in the proper dose ..i stress to use it in the proper dose i dont think will kill anything in your tank but the algae hair and the red slime ..and all the other corals in th tank are looking awesome and doing really good ..the zoas are bright and going to town ..i have a duncan ,green brain ,frogspawn mushrooms,cany cane,acan and others

[Linilou]

Never thought of using it in a pool, but it really makes sense now that I think of it, very interesting post!

 

Update, the clown was looking extremely bad, so we euthanized him. Heartbreaking, but he was to far to be helped, even before we started treating him, he was a goner.

 

We are dosing around 35 ml a day with no bad side affects in the tank, I know that we could go much higher, the small amount of hair algae in the tank isnt even being affected at the current dose, but my boyfriend is reluctant to go to high :/

 

Neither goby have any signs of ailment, no fast breathing or spots, Both are eating.

[fishrme]

do you think the hydrogen peroxide cured your fish..the two you have left did they have the illness too...what all type of corals do you have inyour tank..my powder blue tang died but not from the peroxide but from the heater getting too hot in the tank ... but the yellow tang is getting better ..looking really good ..i wish i has started using it in my tank sooner..my corals are really looking good ..very plump and open

[brandon429]

No matter how it turns out I think its helpful for tank science in general for people to experiment with peroxide like Reefmiser did when he started the big thread here.

 

by refusing to consider it for so many years we risked and lost countless 'scapes unnecessarily. Using peroxide in ways that would have gotten us laughed out of bounds 7 years ago is now saving tanks in a big, big way. whether or not it can treat fish disease has yet to be shown in nano tanks, who knows what it can do. Im really quite pro peroxide heh

 

 

most of the time its hard to isolate peroxide against other variables/causatives but its helpful to read either way. maybe a small detail will become evident that someone else can chime in next round...

[Linilou]

Just an update, dosing 40ml peroxide, still no signs of infection in either fish, corals are doing fine.